A/N

Diluation:Hey all; Diluation here. Now some of you may already know me, some of you may not, and some of you just don't care and wanna read. I get that.

I just wanna say, that if he doesn't make it(and I sincerely hope he does, don't get that wrong), I may not be the next Ptabs… but I'll do my best to be one.

It's really all I have to say. Now, for a word from the others.

Animeak116:What's up everyone, Anime guy here. Today me, and 3 other writers who know, read the works of, and worked with Ptabs have come together, to help continue Remnant of a Iron Rose and on. Don't worry, we'll still continue our own content, but in all honesty, Ptab's work is our main priority.

Please go to his profile to give him some love and support, as he has Asthma and Lung cancer. I hope you all enjoy, as we all work together to make this happen for you all. I'll see you guys later.

Aquilos:Hi all, I'm just hoping that we can stay true to ptabs' legacy, and do his writing and story justice. Our hearts are with him during this difficult time, and we wish for a speedy recovery.

Please also go read Remnant of an Iron Rose, and if you haven't, Remnant of a Rose. Both are made by Ptabs0101, and this is to be a direct continuation of Iron Rose.

The Warlock known as Byf didn't know what to expect when he was selected by the Consensus to be one of their delegation to Remnant. The Cryptarch's experience with children and adolescents were mostly limited to the few that he interacted with when he went down to the city. He had educated young and upcoming guardians on whatever matters they inquired, but a lot of this was via pre recorded lectures and videos, distributed to any guardian who sought them out. Actual teaching was a bit of a new experience.

That being said, what Byf definitely did not expect was to see an entire lecture hall of students, groaning in various degrees of pain and injury. Most just looked exhausted, but some were bandaged up in different places. The worst few were covered in bandages and various bruises. Some were holding their heads, some just had their heads on the desk. A small amount of them though, particularly a blonde and a redheaded girl in a pink skirt, just looked downright furious.

A bit at a loss, Byf turned to the wild history professor, Oobleck, next to him and asked "Is this a common occurrence?" Oobleck pushed his glasses up and took a long swig of his coffee.

"Quitefranklyno,butIheardtheyjustgotbackfromcombatclasseswithone'LordShaxx'andIthinkhemayhavesomethingtodowithallofthis." Byf blinked a few times, trying to process the waterfall of words before it dawned on him.

"Oh that, that would explain it." Byf sighed. He knew the Titan was told several times that these were not the usual Guardians, but more closer to normal humans and to take it easy on them. Apparently, that message only partially made it through that thick helmet around his head.

"I swear that thing is overheating his brain. Apparently the horn isn't the only thing he's missing." The sound of a bell signaled the start of class and the entire room fell silent. Professor Oobleck wasted no time jumping right into introductions.

"HelloclassasyouknowstartingfromtodaywewillhaveaguestlecturerwithusfromtheLastCity."

He stops for a quick sip from his mug

"Iwouldliketoremindeveryonethatyouwilltreatthispersonwithasmuchrespectasheisdueandnowwithoutfurtherdelayallowmetointroduceyournewprofessor,Byf." Byf cleared his throat as Oobleck cleared the podium.

For the occasion, the lore master decided to wear more the more modest robes of a Cryptarch instead of his usual wargear. He wore a dark brown trimmed white robe, accentuated by orange designs on the flap down the front. A brown tunic went underneath along with black pants and simple boots. On his right arm a silver Warlock's bond engraved with the Vanguard's sigil wrapped around his upper arm.

Instead of his usual helmet, he opted for the traditional black and silver hood of the Cryptarchs, embossed with geometric designs along the trim. When he stepped up, the class immediately leaned forward in attention, waiting to see what this Guardian had in store for them considering their experience with the last one.

"Hello, young ones." Byf began, "I can see that your training session with Shaxx went about as well as any of us Guardians would have expected." A mild chuckle resounded through the class at the reminder of the severe beating everyone just received barely twenty minutes ago.

"As your professor has just announced, my name is Byf, I am a Warlock of the Cryptarchs that has been assigned to educate you on the relevant knowledge you will all need to survive in this new galaxy that has been opened up to you all. But before we start, does anyone have any questions?"

He scanned around the room and noticed one hand come up in the back of the class, belonging to a black haired girl with amber eyes. "Yes miss?"

"Belladonna, Blake Belladonna." Blake replied.

"Alright Miss Belladonna, what is your question?" Byf inquired

"You said you are a Cryptarch," Blake began, "What exactly is that?" Byf smiled.

"An excellent question to start with." he answered as he began pacing the front of the lecture hall. "Cryptarch is the nickname given to us Crypto-Archaeologists. We are effectively historians and computer scientists rolled into one." he explained, "Our role is duo, we decrypt engrams Guardians find and bring us, and we are responsible for safeguarding, and cataloguing the information we find, so that it may be preserved for the future generations."

A few more hands came up after the response. "I assume most of you are wondering what an engram is?" Byf mused, as several of the students with their hands up nodded.

"For the sake of time, I'll simply describe it as a way to store matter and data inside a crystal, much like how you would save data to a memory drive, but we will go over that discussion another day. As for today, I believe it would be good to tell you all a story. And that story begins with the Traveler."

As he said that, Byf's ghost materialized over his shoulder, a black and gold trimmed ghost with a projection of a golden tiger's head over it. The ghost turned to face the blank wall in front of the class, and dimmed the lights as it started projecting a video onto the surface.

As the video progressed, the students were mesmerized by the story on how humanity first encountered the Traveler. They were in awe by how this moon-like being terraformed a desolate, dull red planet planet, into a flowering one teaming with life. "The Traveler's Light can breathe life into nothingness." Byf explained, "And with that Light, humanity's progress was all but launched into the infinite." The projection begins showing clips and images of humanity's ventures into the outer cosmos, and the discoveries they made as they did.

"But where there is Light, there is inevitably a shadow that follows." The projection then switched to smoldering human cities and scorched landscapes, Cabal Legions marching across the very planet that was just terraformed, Fallen pirates pillaging and plundering settlements, Vex armies converting planets into machine worlds, and the Hive systematically exterminating everything they came across in a countless horde. Some of the clips were horrifying enough that some of the students averted their gaze and refused to turn around.

"The Great Collapse followed the Golden Age, and the armies of the Darkness arrayed themselves against fragile humanity. What we had spent years building, they destroyed in the matter of weeks." Byf's voice slowly became as hard as steel as he approached this portion of the story. "In the final moments of the war, the Traveler made the ultimate sacrifice." The projection on the screen changed to a clip of a brilliant explosion of light erupting from the Traveler, a light so bright that it nearly blinded everyone in the room.

"With one last stand against the enemy, Humanity was spared, but the Traveler was forced into a deep slumber, of which we do not known when it'd awaken, if ever." The projection switched one last time to a shot of the Traveler, suspended over the Last City taken from orbit. "On that day, the Ghosts were born, and soon so were the Guardians who were to take up the mantle of Humanity's protectors. With that, I will conclude our story for today."

Byf's ghost then turned off the projection, and the lights came back on. Byf breathed a sigh of relief, having made it through all of that. He looked around the room to read the expressions of the students. There was a mixture of shock, awe, and seriousness, all that Byf had come to expect. Allowing them a brief pause, he continued, "So, with some time left, I'm pretty sure that some of you have questions for me, either regarding what you just saw, or anything about Guardians in general, so feel free to ask away." As soon as he finished, nearly the entire room raised their hands.

Byf sighed, "I should have expected as much."

000000

Cayde whistled as he lounged in his office, his fingers busy trying to beat the next level of Furious Avian on his scroll, which he took the liberty of spray painting black since white wasn't really his color. Right as he was about to make the final shot, it started ringing and transferred over to the Caller ID screen. "Aw c'mon I was just about to beat that." Cayde groaned as he pressed "Accept" and put it to his ear. "Hello, you've reached the office of Cayde, official ambassador of the Vanguard, and the Last City, even though I was totally tricked into taking this job."

"Hello Cayde, this is Ghira." came the voice on the other end.

"Oh hey Ghira, wassup." Cayde replied as he spun around in his chair. Ghira was about to speak before Cayde cut him off, "Wait wait wait, don't tell me. Let me guess, the White Fang have rejected my offer, threatened war with us, and now you're calling me to help take down the leadership."

"On the contrary," Ghira's voice grated through the call, "Sienna has agreed to speak with you."

"Oh wow; I actually didn't expect that to happen, but hey that's great." Cayde secretly felt a bit dejected that he wouldn't be going into something guns blazing.

"Indeed." Ghira continued, "She's arranged for the meeting to happen tonight. See to it that you get to Menagerie by the afternoon, her personal guard will escort us to her."

"Alright, sounds good, I'll see you soon big guy."

"Take care." and with that Ghira hung up. Cayde took a big sigh.

"You know, you almost sound disappointed." Cayde's ghost, Sundance, said, materializing next to him.

"Well maybe? A bit?" Cayde replied, "I was maybe secretly hoping this would just turn out like a negotiation but with bullets? But nope, I gotta talk to people again."

"The former would be counterproductive." Sundance remarked, "And Zavala would be pretty ticked off if it went down that direction, not to mention a good chunk of the population here as well."

"Yeah yeah, I know I know." Cayde said as he got up and stretched, "But just in case," he reached down and opened a locked desk drawer. Inside was a metal case labeled with a white spades symbol.

"Is it actually that necessary?" Sundance asked floating over the case as Cayde removed its contents and had her store it away.

"Hey, if I wasn't prepared for every potential outcome at a negotiation, what kind of Hunter would I be? Now c'mon we got a ship to catch." the ghost just sighed and flew after Cayde as he strolled out the door.

"Why do I get the feeling this is gonna become a Cayde negotiation?" she commented as they went down the hall.

"Because Cayde sucks at speeches, being diplomatic, and acting like an adult in general." A voice said behind them. Cayde stopped and turned on his heel to face the newcomer. Dressed in a set of worn Eon Tracer armor, a warlock stood in the middle of the hall, hands behind his back. He wore no helmet, instead letting his green eyes meet Cayde's gaze.

"Sorry uh, who are-"

"I am Barloc." The warlock answered, cutting off Cayde's question.

"Ok cut me off that's fine." Cayde muttered.

"The Vanguard has assigned me to be your, associate, in your endeavours here." Barloc spoke as he approached Cayde. "They came to the conclusion that there needed to be a 'grown-up' in the room at all times. Especially when it comes to negotiating with known terrorists." Barloc's voice had some edge in those last few words, making Cayde and his ghost look at each other.

"What? Does Zavala not trust me to handle this?" Cayde asked rhetorically.

"Ikora actually." Barloc replied, "And she told me to tell you, and I quote, 'Remember 'The Reef?'" Cayde groaned at the memory of that incident.

"Oh come on that was one time." Barloc raised an eyebrow. "How was I supposed to know that the word 'deal' was really close to the Fallen word for 'murder'?" Cayde sputtered.

"You're proving my point here." Barloc replied."Now come on; if I heard your call with Ghira correctly, you have a meeting to get to." Barloc walked past Cayde and down the hall with Cayde following in resignation.

The two then proceeded to get a move on, heading out to Cayde's ship. Mid-way, however, did Cayde's ghost notice something off.

"Wait, where's your ghost?" Sundance said out of the blue, materializing and scanning him after having noticed the lack of comms from his ghost. "Actually, hold on, why am I detecting no traces of light on you?!"

Cayde tried to say something, but Barloc preemptively interrupted him.

"I'd rather not talk about it any of it. It's a long, entirely unnecessary story." Barloc said, looking away. "I'm just here to help as much as I can for Remnant and The Last City."

"Now, I think a story involving your lack of light is-"

Barloc whipped his head around to face Cayde, staring him in the eyes with a hard glare. "Is it?"

The two words were enough to send chills down Cayde's mechanical spine. While he knew he didn't have light, Cayde got the feeling this particular warlock was from the dark ages, and didn't even need it to kick his butt. It reminded him a bit of Ikora, even.

He sighed, and relented. "Alright, but don't be pulling any weird Osiris stuff on me. Next thing I know, you're gonna get me stuck in a Vex loop..."

The warlock forced himself to hold down a chuckle, and instead smiled. "Yes, Osiris is quite a workaholic on the Vex. I assure you, however, that I'm not here to do anything detrimental, or disruptive, to our overall goal here." He said, with both a tone of finality and a sternness that was clearly directed at Cayde, who rolled his eyes.

The two then came before the ship. Cayde took notice that the warlock seemed to lack his own ship, and looked to him. A silence fell between the two.

"Aren't you going to answer my question, o omnipotent one?" Cayde asked.

"Shut up and transmat me into the ship with you, there's your answer." Barloc retorted.

00000

The sharp sound of metal slicing through the air echoed through the barren cavern city of Mt. Glenn. This was accompanied by the sound of Grimm screeches and screams, and the occasional sound of metal scraping bone. A distinct hum of void energy filled the air as the Titan Prometheus whirled and hacked his way through the Grimm hordes, Time's Edge leaping with tongues of void light like a great flame around the blade.

The Grimm were countless in number, but that was of little concern to Prometheus, who had stood against far worse. "Like hacking through a horde of thralls." He thought to himself as he drove Time's Edge through the chest of a Ursa that just tried to maul him. The job of clearing out Mt. Glenn wasn't particularly difficult or anything, save for the moment when a Taijitu had managed to constrict around Prometheus and tried to crush him. Thankfully, a handy void grenade dealt with that. Rather it was just becoming tedious.

"Well, the good news is that this should be the last of the major hotspots." informed Pandora. "We can probably leave the stragglers to the Huntsmen when they come through."

"They better do a good job, or else I'm probably gonna be back here again." Prometheus decapitated two Beowulves that lunged at him with a single cleave of the sword, their bodies immediately disintegrating from the void flame that ravaged through their forms. Prometheus let out a sigh as he deactivated Time's Edge, the void light receding back into the sword.

"I think that's all of them." Pandora announced, scanning the area.

"I should hope so." Prometheus said as he sheathed Time's Edge on his back. "Now come on, we should go make a report to Cayde and the Council, they'll want to know of our progress." He turned and began to walk back towards the entrance of the caverns before Pandora spoke up.

"Hold on, I'm getting something." she said as she looked around the empty city.

"What is it? More Grimm?" Prometheus asked as his hand went to Time's Edge's handle.

"Not sure, it doesn't feel like it." Pandora said, "I'm detecting an abnormal concentration of Darkness from deeper into the city, but without getting closer I can't say for certain what it is." Prometheus sighed. He wanted to go back and take a break but clearly that wasn't happening.

"Alright let's go check it out." He drew Time's Edge, as he and Pandora headed towards the western corner of the settlement.

As they approached where Pandora had pointed out to be the source of the weird readings, Prometheus could feel something in the air around him. Not an actual thing but more like a suffocating feeling, as if the air itself was trying to crush him. "You feel that?" he asked Pandora as they approached the rock face that marked the end of the city.

"Yeah I do, and we're getting - oh." Pandora's voice cut short when the the entire western wall came into view. Right in front of the Titan and Ghost was a cave that had opened up in the rock. It was pitch black and both of them were getting a creeping feeling just by looking into it. "Why does this feel familiar?" Pandora asked as the two inched closer to the mouth of the opening.

"Well, a pitch black cave inside an abandoned city that's been overrun by Darkness. Sounds like every day for us." Prometheus remarked. He crouched down by the opening and took a look inside.

"I'm detecting movement inside there." Pandora informed Prometheus. "It seems to be a small signal but if it were a Grimm, that amount shouldn't be able to saturate this place with that much Darkness."

"Only one way to find out." Prometheus said as he got up, and cautiously made his way in.

The cave went downwards deep into the Earth. Pandora activated her spotlight, but even it only lit a portion of the way ahead. It was as if the darkness in the cave was swallowing up the light from the Ghost.

As they were about to round a bend in the path, Prometheus suddenly stopped. "You hear that?" he whispered to Pandora. A bone shivering growl echoed around the bend, like that of a Beowulf but this felt far more sinister.

"Prometheus, maybe we should head back and call for backup." Pandora cautioned.

"Hold on, I at least want to take a look." the Titan crept around the corner and peeked out from behind it. The Exo Titan's optics widened at the sight.

The path in the cave led to a sizable open cavern. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, and the walls were ragged and bathed with baleful green light. There was a pool of some sort of black liquid in the ground that looked more like oil than water, but that wasn't what Prometheus was looking at. In the cavern surrounding the pool were five or so Creeps. Or at least they used to be Creeps. What they were now resembled mutated amalgamations of their former selves.

Their usual red eyes and markings were now glowing a putrid yellow green. Crystal spines, and spikes that glowed with the same color jutted from their bodies at random. Their normally bare bone skulls, now seemed to flicker with green flames under the surface, as if ready to burst at any moment. Speaking of bursting, each Creep's body bulged, and pulsated with bulbous growths around their torsos and arms, giving them a hulking and terrifying figure.

"I'm detecting abnormally high Darkness signatures from those Grimm." Pandora quietly informed Prometheus as she carefully peaked over his shoulder. "That would explain the feeling we were getting. But how is this possible?"

"I don't know." Prometheus answered, "We'll find out later, but what I do know now is that we need to take these things out, Now." Prometheus slowly reached for the sidearm he had holstered to his left leg, but as he did, his arm clipped the rock wall. The audible crack echoed through the cave and all of the mutant Creeps turned towards Prometheus's direction.

"Crap." Prometheus admitted before one of the Creeps let out a howl and the other four began lumbering their way towards Prometheus's position.

"New plan, Run." Pandora suggested.

"You don't have to tell me twice!" as Prometheus got up and took off in a sprint. When he did, he could hear the sound of the Creeps scrambling behind him, as they also began chasing after the Titan. Prometheus quickly chucked a void grenade behind him as he leapt, and tumbled out of the entrance of the cave back into Mt. Glenn.

There was a thrum of the grenade exploding into a pocket of void light and then a series of cracks echoed from within the rocky tunnels. This was then followed by a chain of explosions that shook the ground Prometheus was standing on as bright green flashes of light and smoke escaped from the entrance. Prometheus waved his hand in front of him, trying to disperse the smoke issuing from the cave. "What the hell?" he demanded as he tried to fan away the smoke.

"I'm not detecting those creeps anymore." Pandora noted, "It's almost as if they exploded with the grenade."

"Like a bunch of cursed thralls." Prometheus said as he reached the mouth of the cave once more. All of a sudden Pandora screams in alarm.

"LOOK OUT!" Prometheus barely had time to duck as a glowing green form flies out of the cave entrance and tumbles onto the ground behind him. He drew Time's Edge and held it at the ready as the cursed creep lifted itself back up and glared at him. Time's Edge lit up again with void light as the creep screeched and threw itself at Prometheus.

"Hyah!" Prometheus swung Time's Edge in a wide arc, and a wave of void light swept out from the blade, catching the Creep at the apex of its trajectory.

The creep released a explosion akin to a cursed thrall upon getting hit, a blast of putrid green sending Prometheus flying back from the point blank martyrdom. The last thing Prometheus remembered before the darkness took hold was Pandora saying "Preparing for resurrection…"

00000

Omake:Shield Belts

Qrow and Taiyang stood still, waiting in Ozpin's office. The two veteran huntsmen were to get a debriefing on a mission they were going to be sent to by Ozpin. It was then that Taiyang noticed something.

"Hey Qrow," He pointed at his thighs. "Where's your shield belt?"

Qrow raised an eyebrow. "My what?"

"Your deflector belt that we're supposed to be wearing on missions." Taiyang said with a slightly harsher tone of voice, pointing at his own. It looked hi-tech for Remnant standards. "The one the Council ordered to be mandatory on missions?"

"It's all the way over in Patch, basically 6,000 miles away." Qrow then sniffed the air, and interrupted Taiyang, who was preparing to rant again. "Oh god… you're drunk, aren't you?"

"What?!"

"You've been stealing my booze from my secret stash! You've been in my sister's underwear drawer!" Qrow pointed accusingly at Taiyang.

"WHAT!? Qrow I-"

"No wonder why you've been awfully reckless all the sudden. Taking shots right before you go punch some grimm…" Qrow said with narrowed eyes.

"Qrow, she's literally on another continent, that's not possible for me!"

"How do you know it's not possible?" Qrow pressed on. "Probably even sharing it with Ironwood's men, that's how you get it so quick…"

"Qrow, we're talking about the shield belts! We all got the memo from Oz that we need to wear them!" Taiyang sighed, pulling the memo out and giving it to Qrow. "Why are you invading your sister's privacy like that anyhow?" He muttered in annoyance.

"There's no way that bit about the shield belts is true!" He said, reading the paper with eyes still narrowed.

"It is true!" Taiyang drawled out.

"True like that time you set me up on a blind date with a green-eyed monkey barista, who turned out to be a lady boy?"

"How was I supposed to know about that, she had no fur! Just a tail!"

"True like that time you catfished me, by posing as Casey Lee on Soulbook?"

"Well I-" Taiyang face-palmed, having been hit with that one. "Look, I'm serious here. We need to start wearing these belts so we don't get overwhelmed instantly without a chance to breathe." He then turned on the belt, revealing a giant barrier that was almost as bright as a lightbulb. "Plus, too many of us were getting ran down by sparrows and such, while on the way to lunch."

Qrow looked at the man, flabbergasted. "Are you kidding me?! We might as well be going out wearing christmas lights for the Vex and Grimm to notice us!"

"You seriously believe Oz would see an issue; attempt to solve it; and somehow make the situation worse than it already was?" Taiyang deadpanned.

"Holy shit!" Yelled Qrow, startling the man. "Oz would totally do that!"

Taiyang's right twitched, and he removed the shield belt, throwing it off to the side. "ALRIGHT! That's it!" He said, and went to clock Qrow in the face.

Just as the two were about to clash, Ozpin finally came in through the elevator. "Qrow! Taiyang! Where are your shield belts?"

"Told you!" Taiyang said angrily at Qrow, before quickly going over to grab his shield belt.

"You. Can not. BE SERIOUS!" Qrow stated

"The Council and I believe the best way to ensure we all survive on the frontlines," He sipped his coffee. "And to avoid getting ran over at nighttime, is to start adapting the shield technology of Earth."

"Oz, don't you think this idea is not only ridiculous, but also VERY counterproductive to me out in stealth missions?" Qrow tried to convince Oz. "I bet these can't actually stop one of those hobber thingies from burning a hole into our heads!"

"Do you have a better way to avoid getting ran over, then?"

"Ohhhh!" Taiyang let out in realization, catching the two's attention. "I think I know what these are really for! They can help us heal faster, like how those ghosts do it!" Taiyang then held the belt above his head. "I HAVE THE POWER!"

"Shut up Tai." Qrow said, ignoring the glare from him. "Oz, this seems like the worst solution to a problem so mindboggingly simple."

"Well I'm sorry to hear you say that Qrow, but this is for-" A pebble then came through the window, breaking the barrier around Ozpin, and also knocking him out with a blow to the head. The pebble then bounced along the ground, as Ozpin fell. The cup also shattered, leaving Ozpin unconscious in a coffee-stained mess.

Qrow facepalmed, and sighed loudly. "We're all gonna die."

That's gonna be all for this chapter. And to address it before anyone comments, don't worry, we'll be switching back to Summer's perspective the next chapter. We had to use this one to set up the rest of the story and to also test the waters with our respective writing styles. There's a lot more content coming down the chute so stay tuned. Thanks again for joining us, and we have been Fireteam Nero.